So long as religious ritual is limited to expressions of culture along the lines of Morris Dancing, the Rites of Spring and other worthy pursuits, I can see no ill in it. When children are being indoctrinated in woo and people are being harmed by charlatan claims of a blissful afterlife if only they would give their mind and ability to think to the charlatan (priest, pastor, minister, rabbi, imam or other religious designation) I find that even the most sincere need to be placed in their own equivalent of hell.

In the late 1970s I went to an American Atheists convention in SF and heard "the one and only Madelyn" speak. I was then about midway through my half-century as an agnostic and came away persuaded that without a god to battle, she would have to re-orient her life.

I greatly appreciate her successful efforts to get government-mandated prayer out of public schools. She took attacks that today few of us have to take. If skeptics conventions today are less exciting, thank Vashti McCollum, Madelyn, and others whose battles required more courage than ours.